BishopAccountability.org

$12m Settlement Reached in Haitian Sex Assault Cases

The Kbnd
July 1, 2013

http://www.kbnd.com/kbnd-news/national-news-stories/637f9dab67b2d80e5d3cecef14caf79d

Fairfield University and a charity designed to help educate boys in Haiti have reportedly reached a $12 million settlement with children who were sexually abused by a founder of the group. The Connecticut Post reports that 24 boys sought damages in connection to abuse by Douglas Perlitz, who was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison in 2011 for the sexual assaults after admitting he engaged in sexual conduct with boys who attended the Project Pierre Touissant School in Cap-Haitien. "This ends the litigation pending in the District of Connecticut in connection with the Perlitz matter," Stanley Twardy Jr., Fairfield University's lawyer, told the newspaper. Twardy said the settlement "is not an admission of liability by any defendant." Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who led the plaintiffs' legal team, planned to hold a news conference on Monday to discuss the terms of the settlement. Ten years after the charity was launched, a Haitian journalist exposed a sex scandal involving Perlitz in 2007. Contributions quickly ceased and the program was shut down by 2009, when an international investigation began involving the Haitian National Police, the United Nations and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division. In Connecticut, Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel and ICE Special Agent Rod Khattabi began building a criminal case against Perlitz, which led to his indictment and conviction. Perlitz later pleaded guilty to traveling overseas to engage in sex with a minor and was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in federal prison. In 2011, nearly $49,000 seized from Perlitz's accounts was distributed to 16 victims named in the criminal cases, the newspaper reports. Perlitz, now 43, remains in federal prison in Texas. His expected release date is Oct. 5, 2026. The Associated Press contributed to this report.




.


Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.